Single and Repeated Impact Behavior of Material Extrusion-Based Additive Manufactured PLA Parts

The advent of Additive Manufacturing (AM) for producing components or parts made of thermoplastic polymers have increased the necessity of a deep knowledge of their mechanical properties. In particular, the mechanical performance under impact loads is still not fully investigated and requires a thorough knowledge. In this paper, polylactic acid (PLA) samples were produced by material extrusion (MEX) technology and subjected to low velocity impact (LVI) tests by using different impactors’ geometries and impact energies. Initially, the PLA filament and MEX-printed samples were subjected to a physico-chemical evaluation through TG, DSC and FTIR analyses. The FTIR and DSC analyzes highlighted phase transitions specific to semicrystalline PLA polymer, while the TG analysis showed that the used printing temperature (220 °C) does not affect the thermal behavior of the filament. The mechanical assessment consisted of single and repeated LVI tests on the same sample until total penetration or failure were reached. The samples subjected to impact tests were analyzed by digital radiography to detect the internal damage and failure mechanisms. The impactor shape has a strong effect on the mechanical strength of the tested samples. For single impacts, the peak load was higher for the 20 mm diameter hemispherical impactor (H20), while the lowest value was experienced by the samples tested with 10 mm diameter hemispherical impactor (H10). The lowest value of specific absorbed energy was recorded with the truncated conical (TC) impactor. For multiple impacts, with the H10 and TC impactors it was possible to impact the sample 4 times, respectively; 2 times with the H20 impactor.